Want to sit in a five-mile backup on Friday night?
Dear Editor,
Want to sit in a five-mile backup on Friday night?
Well, that is about what the new casino will bring. The Game Won group has said that their projections show 48,000 visitors per week. Of those, 2500 or so will come each Monday through Thursday. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will bring 38,000 or so gamblers. Some will be on busses, but many will come by car. While the Saturday and Sunday flow will clog our already overcrowded highways, the Friday flow will kill any movement on Highway 101 going north or southbound. Assuming that most of the gamblers will come by car (a conservative estimate), and that each car will average 1.5 people, this leaves about 6,000 cars more on Friday. Since a vast number of them will come on Friday evening, this will back up the 101/Highway 25 exit for an extra few miles, the 101/152 exit an extra few miles and 156 will be backed up from Union Road to about San Juan Bautista.
The casino would serve as a roadblock to anyone going into or out of the area.
I wonder how many will die on those highways? I wonder how many more drinking drivers will be on those roads going home after their gambling? I wonder who will pay for the improvements on those highways? I wonder how much farmland we will lose in building extra lanes for the casino?
I suspect the Wizard of Oz Game Won group will promise to offer mitigating funds, but they will hide what is behind the curtain. The residents of San Benito County are not fools. Nor do we live in Kansas.
It looks like the supervisors want to serve San Benito County, and they will vote to oppose this idea. Opposition to Measure G voted some of them into office. Supporting the Casino Turkey would surely vote them back out. I wonder how many votes Jaime De La Cruz won by?
Tamra Thacker, Cincinnati,
formerly of Hollister
